sorry, few pictures

It's been a few months since I have updated, in large part due to work and school. So I will compile the few projects that I have done.

Jan 28
On a leisurely drive out to Guadeloupe, just after finishing my wheel, I began to experience a wobble. I kept driving to get a better feel of where it was coming from, to the point that my horn button popped off in the worst of the shaking. Having read horror stories on the Samba where lug nuts could not grip into the surface of recent powder-coat jobs, my mind went to my wheel. I popped off the hubcap and found this.



luckily I caught it in time. Though it may have done damage to the drum... oh well. It was a beautiful day at the beach and I happened to run into another Volkswagen enthusiast, Tom from Santa Maria, a really cool guy out fishing



We talked and I reminded him of the upcoming Meet in the Middle BBQ/Bus Raffle an Najoqui Park.

Feb 18
I took a much needed day off at work for the Meet in the Middle VW BBQ. It was great, lots of cool people. I met up with Steven ("Grasshopper" on Central Coast VW Club) who I had arranged to buy a fuel gauge and two half baked Bosch 010 distributors, really cool guy, but drives water-cooled ; ) I also ran into Tom again and his father, and ate lunch with them and talked, really cool guys, funny too. Of course I am always so goo-goo eyed at these events that I only take the least amount of pictures and of the least cool things. But there are tons of pictures here. In fact I got in one of them!



See? thats my blue bug and Im reaching in the window doing something, maybe fixing my parking brake which broke when I got there. =D Anyway it was a fun event. And I'm looking forward to the next one.

Feb...
While driving, my speedometer cable suddenly broke. I bit the bullet and bought the expensive German one. A week later I install it and no more than a 100 feet later it breaks again. This is one more example of the lesson I have learned that "what is broken is not what's wrong." I reluctantly tore into my speedometer for the mole (6.022 X10²³) time. I found a seized gear, I replaced it with a new gear from my other speedometer, went to Perry's Auto Wrecking to buy an overpriced used cable, and put everything back together, it's still working great.
Around the same time, I decided to do something with my running boards. Instead of painting them I wanted to put new vinyl on them. I drove over to Belluz upholstery and bought some leathery material that came very close to matching the white of my bumpers and wheels. I ground down the rust off the running boards, cut out the material, and used generous amounts of contact cement and well placed clamps. It all came out very well, and it looks great. I thought I had taken pictures while I was doing it but I guess not. This picture is from today and the running board is dirty from driving past flower fields during a rain.



While I'm in this ambiguous time frame I'll add that I fixed up one of the Bosch 010 distributors and put it in. It reduced the flat spot dramatically but its not a miracle worker. I also bought that new fuel gauge from Steven which I installed at the show. My sweet lovin' bug is continually improving.

April 1-8
Worse than the flat spot of my old distributor was the front transaxle mount that was shot dead. The combination of these two formed a tag team worthy of American Gladiators. For a couple of weeks I had planned on using my Spring break to park the bug and dig into the tranny as well. Before doing this I wanted to take a compression test, considering the engine had developed a vibration and there has been metal in the oil twice now.
Cylinder 1: 120
Cylinder 2: 105
Cylinder 3: 125
Cylinder 4: 125

Well I found the offending cylinder. I squirted in oil and did it again.

Cylinder 1: 150
Cylinder 2: 145
Cylinder 3: 150
Cylinder 4: 150

So the rings on #2 are going bad. This makes me hate the guy I bought this engine from, that was his only responsibility and he screwed it up somehow. oh well it will survive a while. Back to the tranny.
I can not come close to explaining how my little "rear hatch" made this project so much easier. Things like clutch cable, engine-to-tranny bolts, starter motor, putting on axle boots, refilling tranny oil, heater ducts; all of these things that would have taken a considerable amount of time each were done in minutes.
In three hours I had the engine out, and the tranny (drum to drum) up on a table. With the engine out, I put on the engine tin that I forgot the last two times to do. While I was taking out the transaxle the front mount fell off in two pieces, it was bad. I spent the rest of the day and half of the next just cleaning the 43 years of buildup, nasty work.
My plan was to fix the oil leak from the side plates by replacing the gaskets, but curiosity had me tearing into the retaining plates also, for more thorough cleaning. For this job I bought: 2 tranny gasket kits, 1 set of axle boots, axle seal kits, gasgacinch, 10 beach towels (from the lost&found at work), 2 cans degreaser, 2 cans brakleen, all three mounts, and a can of black paint.
The side plate nuts would have been finger tight if the gunk had not prevented them from moving, which is why they leaked, and which is good to know. This was a fun project since I'd never really done much with a tranny or axle before. Here are some pictures I took. No real order here, or story, just interesting.









I put a new gasket on the nose cone, mostly so I could re-torque the bolts incase the bad mount had damaged it at all. I also replaced the main seal, but did not replace the t/o bearing or clutch. I bled and adjusted the brakes.

When I finally pulled it out of the garage the new mounts made such a difference! and it hasn't leaked a drop! But as I pulled mine out, I pulled my moms mustang in to replace the clutch and a disintegrated t/o bearing. I spent 6 hours trying to remove a pilot bearing, and I don't mean prying with a screwdriver. I tried everything from hydraulic extraction, to 4 or 5 fabricated bearing pullers!

and here is my beard after 4 months!

Pattern of All Patience

So after I vacuumed out my bug, I saw the grill around the speedometer, and the really dirty screen backing them. So I sandblasted and painted them. They look really good now, and it makes such a difference to look at. Its cool how subtleties can do that.



Anyway, with my fuel gauge out, I decided to replace the broken plastic shield. I had the brilliant idea of replacing it with a CD case, I was very proud. The original was about .065" and the CD case was .040" so it was thinner but not by too much. I cut it out like you would cut glass, and it looked really good. In this picture you can only see the edges and the crack in the original, but you get the point.



I should have stopped there, but I wanted to shoot white grease into the wire tube to make the wire move more freely in it. I had to take it apart to get to the tube. Like a litany I repeated "don't break the needle", but like an idiot brute, time and time again, I broke the needle. This time it wasn't so much my fault as it was an unfortunate mistake, though.



Just like my speedometer I wanted to make a new one. I had beads made out of bone, and I knew it was going to be perfect. I ground down to the basic size, then filed and sanded it to within a hundredth of an inch in all dimensions.



I ground out the new center, using my dremel with a mill-like cutter.



A perfect match in depth.



I drilled a very small hole to press the needle into. an incredibly close tolerance hole, I couldn't believe it came out so perfectly.



After some shaping of the needle, it was a perfect fit. I couldn't make that nifty little tail for a counter-weight like the original had, but I offset the hole to achieve the same purpose.



I was meticulous. I was "the pattern of all patience." four hours in the making, and I couldn't have made a mistake if I had tried; everything was coming together perfectly.



I had it. Everything was together. At any point something could have broken, but it hadn't and it was now the last step. To cinch the top of the shaft over the new needle, like a rivet. This had to be done by hitting it with a tapered punch. so I did it.

Perfect. It worked perfectly. but the needle won't move with the wire! I knew the problem, the rivet wasn't pushing down hard enough. This time I ground off the tip of the punch so it would push down the sides more, and hit it.

no change. hit it again. still nothing. one more time. IT BREAKS!!!!! I kinda wanted to laugh.

I really wish I had a picture of it before it broke, because it looked really good.





This was my biggest hang-up from the very beginning. The needle goes over the shaft labeled #2, which has splines to make sure it catches the needle. But the lever labeled #3 rotates freely on that shaft, and only turns the needle by friction, because the needle is pushed down by the mushroomed shaft labeled #1. This was done so the needle could be adjusted, which is necessary. My hang-up is that I had to drill off the edges of the mushroom to take off the original broken needle, so I didn't have as much material in the shaft to mushroom over the new needle! I had originally solved this with a rubber o-ring that would catch the lever, but it wouldn't fit beneath the plate, and so I went along with the original design, which didn't work for me...

I'm keeping the needle, since it is in good shape, and I think at some point I will try again to fix it, we'll see how it goes.

Thermo-Aesthetics

Well I've just finished the beginning of a long project of painting my wheels. I started with the spare tire. I muscled off the tire, then sandblasted the wheel, using the spiffy new media-blaster I got from santa. Here is what the wheels look like to begin with.



Starting on Thursday Jan. 11, I sandblasted and primed my first wheel.



I'm in love with this sandblaster. Now that I have it I want to sandblast everything. This wheel is down to bare metal.



On the 12th I added a second coat of primer, white this time. and let it dry for 48 hours



Sunday the 14th, 48 hours later, I added color; it's the same as the bumpers, Ivory gloss. I sprayed multiple coats, then let it dry 48 hours. Tuesday the 16th I added the clear gloss coats and let it dry another 48 hours.



Thursday the 18th it was dry and ready to put back on. I muscled on the tire being very mindful of the new paint, but still I managed to chip off a good strip on the front of the wheel, down to the first coat of primer. That really ticked me off, but this wheel is the practice run for the rest of them, being the spare. I'm going to practice painting bare metal, because I've had chipping on my bumpers too. I think it is from not sanding the primer coat before painting, which I didn't think was necessary, but we'll find out with my experiments. Anyway, I patched up the scars so they only look a little lumpy, and then stuck it on. I'll admit I'm not as stoked on it as I first thought I would be. There is just something wrong with the aesthetics.



In this picture I Photoshoped the rear wheel, running board, and blinker to match. This should be pretty close to what they will look like. I'm undecided about painting the running board, but I think that is another aesthetics problem.



On to other projects! I finally found the use for my tranny-hatch!! because my transaxle leaks so much gear oil, I have to refill it every now and again. Before, it involved jacking up the car, removing a wheel, climbing under, and squeezing into very tight, oily spaces. but now, I just pop the hatch, and BAM! its done! I am so very stoked.



and I also painted my stick shifter. I did it in a hurry, since my daily driver is useless without it, but it looks good. This was prompted by the rattling noise it made while driving. I had only planned on re-greasing it, but I went a step further and painted it too.

I love you, Sugar..

Its been a good while since I've updated. There are a number of things that I have done with my bug. Since my last post, I've painted my wiper arms, a project that was prompted by my wiper motor failing. I tore it down and found this reduction gear had stripped.



It was a 6volt motor and it went wild, high on 12 volts, which probably caused the gear to strip, so I bought a 12v conversion armature from aircooled.net. But without a solution for the gear it was useless. I posted a want ad on the central coast forum and Doug Z(?) aka "BoysBug" was cool enough to let me buy a whole assembly from him. He's a good guy with a couple Herbies. This was all in mid-october.



They look good on there and I think the chrome on the blinkers is next. I'm going to do all the rusty trim that I can't afford to replace.



After that I began digging around behind my back seat and, sadly, found lots of corrosion. It is ugly.





I can't afford a proper fix right now, so I hippie fixed it. with some ply and carpet, grabbed from a back alley, I made a cover. and I used some more carpet under the window to insulate it. I was mostly concerned about fumes and sound.



A little insulation



The carpet I found in an alley, stapled to ply.



nice fit.



aesthetics.

It actually quieted it down a lot! and now I have a little access window to my tranny and starter and all that goodness, hopefully one day it will be useful. It is still crappy looking though, but someday I'll do it proper. This was sometime in November.

Early December I was driving home and, just as I turned into my neighborhood, my engine died and I was able rolled all the way to the front of my house. I checked gas. ok. I checked spark to the plug. nope. I checked spark from the coil. nope, but its a new coil. I looked under the dist. cap and didn't notice anything at first, then I saw that the plastic rubbing block had broken off the points. I had an extra set of points and I was rolling again in no time. I should have adjusted my points a long time ago, because the engine responded really well. A friend was at my house when all of this happened, working on his toyota. He told me "you need to get a chevy" I said that if it had been a chevy, I couldn't have done something like that in 20 minutes, like I had.

December 18: I bought new tires for all five. It's good to get that off my mind, but it hurt. They aren't white-walled and I think they are uglier.

Two weeks ago I began grinding my rear bumper to paint it also. I finally put it back on this Tuesday, and it looks mighty fine!



I was thinking about doing something like this..



no, not really... this bus has a stinger... haha... I saw this at the Solvang show.

Next project are my wheels. When they are finished it should look amazing. It will take a long time to finish them all, but it'll get done. I saw these wheels at the Solvang show also, I really liked them...

Feng Shui

I've really been trying to make my bug look less old and more classic, especially for the neighbors because it tends to give them a little more patience for it. Well my after-market bumpers are getting rusty and I can't afford new ones so I decided to paint the front one to see how it turns out.





I ground off all the rust. what a pain.





Then I rattle-can primed and painted them Ivory gloss.





It looks surprisingly good! It matches the steering wheel and knobs and tray inside. I'm going to do the same to the wheels and rear bumper and what ever else I can so it's all feng shui (googled that ish!). I'll save myself the pain and have the rest media blasted and get new tires for the wheels but first i'll need a little cash so it will have to be put off for a little while.

Seat belts

I ordered new vintage style three point seat belts at cip1.com for $30 each. They are non-retractable and I wanted to make them retractable by using the belts I already have. I started by cutting off the belt's metal piece.



Here it all is, disassembled. The first time I took it apart the spring unraveled in my face.



The pin goes through the spool and the belt around the pin. I left a little stub where it was stitched together so it couldn't pull through the pin and I wouldn't need to stitch an overlap myself.



Here the pin is through the spool and mount bracket, the black plastic is the spring and it goes on the top of the pin.



The shiny metal piece disengages the lock when the strap is wrapped fully around the spool and it needed a little adjusting. The spool was sticky but with a little white grease spray it retracted really smoothly.



I'll admit that I had to disassemble the whole thing five times on the first belt because it was backwards or I forgot to put the plastic on or both but the second time it went quickly and I only assembled it backwards once.



Well here it is and it looks pretty good all retracted and everything. It was a simple project and only took an hour (because of screw-ups) but I saved at least $100.